1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a messaging communication system for transmitting messages, and in particular, to a presence-based communication system interfaced with a messaging communication system.
2. Description of Related Art
Messaging communication systems deliver electronic messages from message senders to message recipients. Examples of various types of electronic messages include, but are not limited to, electronic mail (e-mail) messages, facsimile (fax) messages, voicemail messages and instant messages (IM). Each type of electronic message can be managed by a different messaging communication system, or a unified messaging communication system can be provided that manages two or more of the electronic message types (e.g., two or more of e-mail, voicemail, fax and IM).
Typically, messaging communication systems utilize the existing infrastructure of various communication networks, such as the Public Switched Telecommunication Network (PSTN), the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), Local Area Networks (LANs) and the Internet, to transmit and receive electronic messages. For example, to deliver an e-mail message, the messaging communication system may transmit the e-mail as Internet Protocol (IP) packets over the Internet. As another example, to deliver a voicemail message, the messaging communication system may transmit the voicemail message as circuit-switched data over the PSTN.
Each message includes an originating address identifying the sender and a destination address identifying the recipient. For example, in a facsimile message, the originating address is the telephone number of the sender and the destination address is the telephone number of the recipient. As another example, in an instant message, the originating address is the IP address of the sender and the destination address is the IP address of the recipient. When routing messages over a communication network, the destination address is used to identify and locate a message server associated with the recipient. The message server may be associated with the particular type of electronic message or the message server may be a unified message server capable of managing several different types of electronic messages.
The message server is coupled to the communication network to receive the message and coupled to one or more recipient terminals (e.g., computer, telephone, fax machine, etc.) to provide the message to the recipient. The message server may also provide additional message processing functionality to the recipient, such as storing the message, filtering the message, converting the message into a format desired by the recipient and providing various messaging options to the recipient for responding to the message. For example, the message server may enable the recipient to generate and transmit a response message to the sender, forward the message to another subscriber or forward the message to another terminal associated with the recipient.
However, existing message communication systems provide only limited information to the sender on the status of the message. Typically, this information is in the form of a simple binary result (e.g., read or un-read; received or not received). For example, an e-mail server may provide a feature commonly known as “return receipt requested” that automatically generates and transmits an e-mail back to the sender when the recipient opens the e-mail message. As another example, a telephony server providing facsimile services to a recipient subscriber may automatically generate and transmit a facsimile message back to the sender during the facsimile call indicating whether the facsimile message was received at the recipient facsimile machine.
This type of binary message status information may not be sufficient in some enterprise and customer service settings, requiring employees to waste valuable time and resources providing additional message status information to the sender. For example, an employee recipient may need to generate and transmit a separate electronic message to the sender informing the sender that the electronic message (voicemail, e-mail, fax or IM) was received and is being processed and/or providing other message processing information to the sender, such as an expected response date, an expected completion date, an appropriate contact person, etc. Therefore, what is needed is a mechanism for providing detailed message status information to the sender.